Struck Through the Heart
by Adamantwrites
Summary: A vignette. Adam deals with memories of his short trip to NY-and attempts to recover from the experience.


Struck Through the Heart

Adam looked out the train's window into the infinite darkness as in his head, he heard her name, "Ge-ne-vieve, Ge-ne-vieve, Ge-ne-vieve" in the rhythm of the sound of the locomotive. He had been traveling for days and would soon make the switch to a stagecoach when the line ended in Kansas City, Oklahoma. That was why he had traveled to New York, to meet with the railroad executives and sell them Ponderosa timber to expand their line even further and not just for passenger trains but to extend the railhead further west than Abilene in order to transport fat beeves to the slaughter houses. The end of cattle drives was drawing nigh.

_"And this is my daughter, Genevieve."_

_Adam couldn't find his voice, could barely breath. _

_"So pleased to meet you, Mr. Cartwright. My father tells me that you're a wealthy cattleman and that you also deal in timber and own silver mines. How vey delightful but alas, I've met you far too late."_

He never would have believed that it could happen to him, that after meeting a woman, he could fall so horribly, so dreadfully in love with a passion that so overwhelmed him that he had practically dropped to his knees when she appeared. That only happened to Joe. Joe was the one who came home so madly in love that he couldn't eat—couldn't sleep—became pale and morose if his love was unrequited and jubilant when it was. But Joe's inamoratas soon faded and he moved on. But now Adam knew that he was as vulnerable as Joe and he couldn't bear it. Nevertheless, there was no denying it.

And Adam could well understand how the ancients would have found it necessary to create Eros and his cruel arrows to explain that feeling of falling in love, love at first sight. It was as if one was struck through the heart—it was even painful and took the breath away and left a continual ache when the object of one's passion was out of view.

_"I saw you looking for me," she whispered as she sidled up to him._

_He became dizzy from her perfume, from her closeness. Her breath warmed his cheek. He felt his blood pounding in his head, thrumming through his veins. He wanted nothing and no one but her._

Adam smiled sardonically when he thought of how he searched the room for her as the railroad executives engaged him in conversation. He couldn't even recall what they had said, just the feeling he experienced when he finally saw her and she looked at him and gave him that smile and then approached him. That was joy-that was bliss.

But the true ecstasy came when he and she were alone and her long, silky hair was like a web into which he had become mired, a net which had captured him and kept him her willing prisoner. Adam knew that man wasn't created to know such things; that feeling of rapture was only for the divine gods, something he wasn't-he wanted only to grovel at her feet, to fawn and beg and scrape for her attentions, for her mouth on him and her hands, so cool and light, touching him, rushing over his body like a soft breeze, her fingers tracing his lips and then…ah, then she kissed him and their essential breaths mingled and she let him experience what all the poets had written about for centuries and yet their words hadn't—couldn't accurately describe.

_"Oh, Jenny, I thought that I knew what it was like to lose oneself to passion but it was nothing like this. I adore you." Adam roughly took her mouth, kissed her with a desire that was still not sated._

_She broke away from him. "Adam, don't love me. Don't. I can't love you—don't want to love you."_

Adam thought of her face, remembered her mouth, her large eyes and then the feeling of her slender arms twining around his neck and he groaned—he hadn't meant it to be audible and quickly glanced at the salesman who sat next to him but the man was snoring undisturbed. And the night flew by, the seconds passing, turning into minutes, into hours, into miles and taking him further and further away from her.

"Oh, Jenny," he whispered into the air, "why couldn't you love me?" But Adam knew the answer—she was promised to another. He knew that he had just been a passing amusement for her, that she was bored since her fiancé was away and that she delighted in his obvious, slavish adoration of her. He thought of himself and his behavior over the past three days with disdain. "Fool," he had called himself when he wasn't able to sleep, tossing in the sheets of the bed in his hotel room, trying to find the sleep that evaded him. "Idiot—ass," he would say to himself. But it did no good—he could still smell her on the sheets, the perfume she used and that he swore was forever in his head—if he closed his eyes, even now, he could rouse the fragrance, smell it again. Even here, even in this full railroad car.

_"I'm sorry that tonight is the end of it, Adam. Really I am. I've enjoyed you—I must say that you're quite the man but he's coming home tomorrow and you're leaving. I can't go with you—please don't ask me again. I warned you not to love me but you wouldn't listen. Men are such fools."_

Adam knew that she had to be forgotten if he was to find any future pleasure in life. Jenny had to be dismissed from his memory-but Adam didn't know how he could; he yearned for her. He had allowed her to crawl through his veins, to invade his solitary existence, to shatter his heart as one would a precious diamond with one fell stroke—adamantine in strength yet when struck in just the right spot—splintered into a thousand worthless pieces. Adam wasn't surprised to find that his heart, what was left of it, beat with the rocking rhythm of her name—it was now his mantra. "Ge-ne-vieve, Ge-ne-vieve, Ge-ne-vieve…" over and over, on and on as he traveled through the black night.

~Finis~

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. All original characters and plots are the property of the author. No copyright infringement is intended.


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